MPX 14000 FIPS appliances

December 13, 2018

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Important:

Configuration steps for NetScaler MPX 14000 FIPS and NetScaler MPX 9700/10500/12500/15500 FIPS appliances are different. MPX 14000 FIPS appliances do not use firmware v2.2. A FIPS key created on the HSM cannot be transferred from MPX 9700 platform to MPX 14000 platform. However, if you have imported an RSA key as a FIPS key, you can copy the RSA key to the MPX 14000 platform, and then import it as a FIPS key. Only 2048-bit and 3072-bit keys are supported.

A FIPS appliance is equipped with a tamper-proof (tamper-evident) cryptographic module—a Cavium CNN3560-NFBE-G—designed to comply with the FIPS 140-2 Level-3 specifications (from release 12.0 build 56.x). The Critical Security Parameters (CSPs), primarily the server’s private-key, are securely stored and generated inside the cryptographic module, also referred to as the Hardware Security Module (HSM). The CSPs are never accessed outside the boundaries of the HSM. Only the superuser (nsroot) can perform operations on the keys stored inside the HSM.

Before configuring a FIPS appliance, you must check the state of the FIPS card and then initialize the card. Create a FIPS key and server certificate, and add any additional SSL configuration.

Limitations

SSL renegotiation using the SSLv3 protocol is not supported on the back end of an MPX FIPS appliance.

1024-bit and 4096-bit keys and exponent value of 3 are not supported.

Configure the HSM

Before configuring the HSM on an MPX 14000 FIPS appliance, you must check the state of your FIPS card to verify that the driver loaded correctly, and then initialize the card.

At the command prompt, type:

show fips
FIPS Card is not configured
Done

The message “ERROR: Operation not permitted - no FIPS card present in the system” appears if the driver is not loaded correctly.

Initialize the FIPS card

The appliance must be restarted three times for proper initialization of the FIPS card.

Important

Verify that the /nsconfig/fips directory has been successfully created on the appliance.

Do not save the configuration before you restart the appliance for the 3rd time.

Perform the following steps to initialize the FIPS card:

Reset the FIPS card.

Restart the appliance.

Set the security officer password for partitions 0 and 1, and the user password for partition 1.
Note: The set or reset command takes more than 60 seconds to run.

Save the configuration.

Verify that the password encrypted key for the master partition (master_pek.key) has been created in the /nsconfig/fips/ directory.

Restart the appliance.

Verify that the password encrypted key for the default partition (default_pek.key) has been created in the /nsconfig/fips/ directory.

Restart the appliance.

Verify that the FIPS card is UP.

Initialize the FIPS card by using the CLI

At the command prompt, type the following commands:

reset fips
Done
reboot
set fips -initHSM Level-2 so12345 so12345 user123 -hsmLabel NSFIPS
This command will erase all data on the FIPS card. You must save the configuration (saveconfig) after executing this command. Do you want to continue?(Y/N)y
Done

Note: The following message appears when you run the set fips command:

Create FIPS keys

You can create a FIPS key on your MPX 14000 FIPS appliance or import an existing FIPS key to the appliance. The MPX 14000 FIPS appliance supports only 2048-bit and 3072-bit keys and an exponent value of F4. For PEM keys, an exponent is not required. Verify that the FIPS key is created correctly. Create a certificate signing request and a server certificate. Finally, add the certificate-key pair to your appliance.

You must specify the key type (RSA or ECDSA) and specify the curve for ECDSA keys.

Note

1024-bit and 4096-bit keys and an exponent value of 3 are not supported.

After creating the FIPS key and server certificate, you can add the generic SSL configuration. Enable the features that are required for your deployment. Add servers, services, and SSL virtual servers. Bind the certificate-key pair and the service to the SSL virtual server. Save the configuration.

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